Day 3: Total AbsurdityWilliam didn’t know how long he had been running. He only knew that stopping wasn’t an option.

  The mountain path had become a blur beneath his feet, twisting and shifting with each step. He didn’t descend into the valley—he was dragged there, his own legs moving without his consent. The treadmill-like force of the world guided him, tilting the ground beneath him at unnatural angles, directing his sprint through ruined roads and colpsing bridges.

  One moment, he was high above, looking down on the pizza-covered wastend. The next, he was in it.

  The woman beside him—whoever she was—was barely keeping pace, her face twisted with exhaustion. "Why... why won't it stop?" she gasped, stumbling. Her feet slipped on the melted cheese coating the pavement, and William saw the moment she lost control.

  Her eyes met his. Then, she was gone.

  A tornado of pizza crust and boiling sauce sucked her into its swirling mass, spinning her into the sky like a discarded ragdoll. William didn’t even have the energy to react. He had seen too much.

  The others around him—what few survivors remained—were no better off. They were skeletons in motion, half-dead figures running in pce, their breath coming out in ragged gasps. The cold was settling in now, the wind biting through their clothes.

  But William was different. He glowed like a torch in the darkness. His skin radiated heat, steam rising from his sweat-soaked body. The freezing survivors gnced at him in confusion, but none dared get close. His presence was unnatural, his warmth an anomaly.

  A reminder that he wasn’t quite like them.

  He wasn’t sure if that made him lucky or cursed.

  Day 4: Survival Becomes UnbearableThe temperature had plummeted to lethal levels. The ice-coated streets were now deadly traps, the pizza sludge beneath them frozen into slick, treacherous yers. William’s steps left steaming footprints on the ice, his unnatural warmth melting the ground beneath him with each stride.

  The treadmill still dragged him forward, but the world itself seemed weaker now. The tornadoes came less frequently. The bees—Gilda’s Gifted Buzzers—buzzed slower, their once-relentless pursuit becoming sluggish in the frigid air.

  Not that it mattered. The damage was already done.

  William was the only one still running.

  Everywhere he looked, frozen bodies y sprawled on the ground, their expressions locked in eternal suffering. Some had colpsed mid-stride, their legs twisted beneath them. Others had frozen upright, statues of flesh and ice.

  He ran past a man whose eyes were wide open, his hand outstretched as if reaching for help. His face was blue, lips cracked. William didn’t stop. He couldn’t.

  Not even when his past came creeping in.

  Days 5-6: The End is NearThe city had swallowed him.

  William wasn’t sure when he had left the town behind. The treadmill had taken him here without his consent, dragging him through shattered highways and broken bridges until he found himself among towering ruins.

  This pce had once been full of life. Now, it was just a graveyard.

  And the ghosts were everywhere.

  The visions came in waves. He saw his wife first—frail and weak, curled up in a hospital bed. Her breath had been shallow, her voice barely a whisper when she had st spoken to him. He remembered how tightly she had gripped his hand, how he had lied to her with a forced smile. You’re going to be okay.

  She hadn’t been.

  Then came his father. The bear had come out of nowhere, a monstrous shadow among the trees. The old man had fought, but he had lost. William had found what remained, torn and broken, staining the forest floor.

  The images flickered. A drowning child.

  Bckened corpses pulled from the ashes of a home that should have been safe.

  The past clung to him, whispering, gnawing, reminding him that his suffering had begun long before the world had gone mad.

  But through it all, he kept running.

  The city stretched endlessly around him, a maze of ruins and ice-covered pizza. He was the only one left moving, the st runner in a marathon of the dead.

  And then, finally, the treadmill stopped.

  Day 7: The Final Survivor

  William colpsed.

  For the first time in seven days, his legs finally gave out, and the ground didn’t force him back up. He hit the frozen pavement hard, his chest heaving, steam rising from his sweat-drenched body like smoke from a dying fire.

  Silence.

  No tornadoes. No bees. No invisible force dragging him forward.

  Just him.

  He rolled onto his back, staring at the sky. It wasn’t bck. It wasn’t blue. It was orange—a deep, eerie glow stretching across the horizon. But there was no sun.

  The only light came from him.

  William lifted a trembling hand, watching the faint heat radiate from his skin like a dying ember. His breath misted in the cold, curling in the air like ghostly tendrils.

  “I’m a goddamn furnace,” he muttered.

  Then, he ughed.

  The sound echoed through the dead city, bouncing off crumbling buildings and ice-slick streets. He ughed until his ribs ached, until the st of his strength drained out of him like water from a cracked bottle.

  Then, the sky cracked.

  A jagged bolt of golden lightning tore through the heavens, splitting the sky apart like shattered gss. The air rippled, warping and bending until reality itself twisted.

  And then he appeared.

  A figure descended from the sky, floating effortlessly above the ruins. His body glowed like molten gold, radiating an unnatural, dazzling light. His face was obscured by a porcein-white jester’s mask, split into jagged sections that shifted and flexed with every movement. The mask’s grin stretched too wide, teeth gleaming like polished gss.

  William squinted up at him, blinking sweat and exhaustion from his eyes. “Oh, great,” he croaked. “Another hallucination.”

  The figure chuckled—a sharp, musical sound that rang through the empty streets.

  “Hallucination? My dear, pitiful William,” he sang, voice dripping with theatrical delight. “I am exactly who you think I am.”

  William wiped his face with a shaky hand. “I don’t know who you are.”

  The figure tilted his head, the jester mask contorting into a mock frown. “Really? Who else could I possibly be at this point?”

  William shrugged. “A golden idiot with too much free time?”

  The mask split into a jagged, toothy grin. “Close enough.”

  The figure slowly descended, his feet hovering just above the frozen ground. He twirled in pce like a performer on stage, his glowing limbs casting elongated shadows across the ruins.

  “Seven days of running,” he mused, spinning in zy circles. “Seven days of torment, suffering, and humiliating slips on pizza-strewn streets. And you’re still alive.”

  William coughed, rubbing his chest. “Trust me, I’m just as surprised as you are.”

  The figure csped his hands together. “I must admit, I expected you to die on Day 3. Or maybe Day 4. But you just kept going. Like a stubborn cockroach waddling through a wildfire.”

  William nodded weakly. “Yeah, that tracks.”

  The figure faltered mid-spin. “Wait, you agree?”

  “Of course I agree,” William said, groaning as he tried to sit up. “I’ve been called worse. And honestly? Cockroach feels generous.”

  The golden figure floated closer, his glowing body casting warm light over William’s haggard face. “You’ve lost weight, too,” he said, mask splitting into a sharp grin. “Yet somehow, you’re still fat.”

  William gave him a thumbs-up. “It’s honestly impressive.”

  The grin wavered. “You... you’re not even mad?”

  “Too tired to be mad,” William muttered, flopping back onto the pavement. “Insult me all you want. My knees hurt.”

  The figure hovered there, mask twitching in visible confusion. Then, slowly, the grin returned—wider and more jagged than before.

  “Oh, I like you,” he purred, floating down until he was sitting cross-legged in the air, right beside William. “Most people scream and beg. But you? You just lie there like a melted candle, accepting the cosmic joke.”

  William turned his head, squinting at him. “So, are you gonna tell me who you are, or do I have to keep guessing?”

  The figure pced a glowing hand over his chest, voice dripping with mock sincerity.

  “I am Zephar,” he decred, “The Boisterous Trickster of Fate. God of Humans. Master of Chaos.”

  He leaned in closer, the mask's eyes widening unnaturally.

  “Also, part-time cosmic comedian,” he whispered.

  William let out a breathless ugh. “Of course you are.”

  Zephar cpped his hands, golden sparks flying from his fingertips. “Oh, this is delicious!” he cried, floating back up into the air. “The st human left on Earth, still clinging to life like an old man to a broken recliner, chatting with a god like it’s Tuesday.”

  Zephar’s ughter echoed through the streets, but it rang hollow.

  The glow around him dimmed, flickering like a dying bulb.

  His mask shifted, the grin fttening into a thin line. He hovered there, watching William, saying nothing for a long while.

  William blinked at him. “What? No more jokes?”

  Zephar stared at the horizon, his voice quieter. “I didn’t think you’d make it this far.”

  William snorted. “Neither did I.”

  Zephar's body pulsed with golden light, but it faded quickly. His fingers twitched. The dice, three gleaming orbs, floated around him in zy circles—each one shimmering with faint echoes of past destruction.

  “I didn’t want it to end like this,” Zephar whispered. “I never do.”

  William frowned, dragging himself upright with shaky arms. “What are you talking about?”

  Zephar turned to him, the mask's eyes dim and unreadable. “I thought... maybe this time...” He trailed off, voice cracking, before forcing out a brittle ugh. “Ah, but who am I kidding? It’s always the same, isn't it? My rolls ruin everything. And then it all starts over.”

  William wiped Pizza sauce from his chest. His clothing was gone, just a glowing overweight mess was left. “Start over?”

  Zephar floated closer, kneeling in the air, his voice barely a whisper.

  “I’m sorry, William,” he said. “For everything.”

  William’s heart pounded. “Sorry? For what?”

  Then the world started shaking.

  The ground buckled beneath them, fractures ripping through the streets like lightning bolts. Buildings groaned and crumbled, colpsing into clouds of dust. The orange sky fred red, burning like a living inferno as a distant, echoing hum reverberated through the air.

  Zephar stiffened. He stared up at the sky, and for the first time, the mask’s grin disappeared entirely.

  “No,” he whispered. “Not yet.”

  The dice around him spun faster, vibrating so intensely that cracks formed along their gleaming surfaces. They fred with unnatural light, filling the world with an overwhelming golden glow.

  William’s mouth went dry. “What the hell is happening?”

  Zephar didn’t look at him.

  Instead, he looked at the horizon—at something unseen, something approaching.

  Something inevitable.

  And then, in a voice so small it barely registered beneath the world’s death rattle, Zephar answered:

  “The third roll.”

  The ground split open.

  A massive form rose up.

  And the world started to end for William for the third time this week.